“I don’t want to speak about him as a player, I don’t want to speak as I buy or not to buy. I want to speak about him as a professional, as a human being. The last thing I told him before he left ‘I was not right with you once, I have to be right with you now,” said Mourinho.

“So when he was asking me to let him leave I had to say ‘yes, you can leave’ because I did it once, I cannot do it twice. So I feel sorry for the first period with him, he knows that. I am happy that he knows because I told him.

“I will miss a good guy, a good professional, a good influence in training – a very good influence. I could not stop him to go even knowing that until the end of the season we have so many matches and we would probably need him for a few matches or a few periods. I had to let him go and now publicly wish him and his wife a very happy life in Chicago.”

Asked if he regrets the way he treated Schweinsteiger, Mourinho said: “Yeah, I do. He’s in the category of players that I feel sorry for something that I did to him.”

Related Tags

Related Sections

SMELL LIKE ZLATAN: Ibra launches new fragrance

Manchester United forward Zlatan Ibrahimovic has given us some great memories both on and off the football pitch – but now he wants something else: For us to smell good.

Ibrahimovic, who has recently revealed his wish to stay at Manchester United for another season, was in Cheshire at the launch of his own brand of aftershaves and fragrances.

“I want to do something and conquer, just like I do with football. I have been very involved from the start, I’m learning every day,” said Zlatan.

Well, now you can smell like Zlatan – will you follow the great Swede and “conquer”?

The 35-year-old added: “I would never do something that I don’t stand behind, it’s not to make money, I will still eat, I will still survive. It’s for a real challenge for me. My personality is in every drop.”